Aust honours Jerry Lewis, but at what cost?

Australia has honoured veteran Amercian comedian Jerry Lewis with an AM, a Member of the Order of Australia, for his work in raising funds for people living with Muscular Dystrophy. He would call them ‘sufferers’. Much has been written about Lewis’ work. Much of it is full of praise, but many people with disability have a different take on it. They claim the cash has come at too high a cost.

Cassandra Phillips addressed the issue in her 2001 paper, Re-imagining the (Dis)Abled Body, published in The Journal of Medical Humanities. The section below highlights PWD concerns with Lewis, and the charity/pity/medical models of disablity.

While the annual Jerry Lewis Telethon raises millions of dollars for muscular dystrophy, the children in attendance serve as nothing more than cute mascots or lures. Furthermore, by labeling the children as “Jerry’s Kids,” the organizers reinforce the dependency of persons with disabilities. Viewed as victims of a disease, persons with muscular dystrophy become charity cases because they need special care, where, I would emphasize, special becomes synonymous with separate. Many charitable organizations would be the first to defend the fact that such displays are necessary to increase public and cor- porate donations. Longmore (1997) suggests that, in telethons, the differentiation between the “givers and the takers of this world” made implicit in the appeal for donations also draws on moral boundaries, because the appeal “contrasts humane concern for one’s neighbor with selfish preoccupation with one’s private interests” (p. 134). It distinguishes between those who personally shoulder responsibility for civic welfare from those who indulge in self-centred responsibility. Longmore (1997) goes on to point out that, as recipients, persons with disabilities form a third category, a category that is intextricably entwined with social stigma (p. 136). The givers reassure themselves of their individual and collective moral health while the recipients are socially invalidated. Persons with disabilities are ritually defined as dependent on the moral fitness of nondisabled people.” (Phillips, 2001, p. 168)